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This week began with a trip to Burriana Beach with my friend and her daughter, luxuriating on the sunbeds with the thick mattresses under coconut parasols. This was perfect preparation for a diversion into Nerja town for my shopaholic companions to get another fix. As a shopaphobic, I stationed myself outside a central café/bar overlooking the church square, indulged in some delicious hummous and pitta bread and browsed through a magazine between eating and people watching. There was a feeling of something imminent by an increased police presence, some of the square cordoned off and some young band members tuning (well tooting) their instruments! Anyway, the church clock chimed 8 p.m. and out of the church came a Madonna in muted gold, on a plinth festooned with fresh white lilies, holding toddler Jesus’s hand. Unlike the Puente Madonna who was carried along supported on people’s shoulders, the Nerja Madonna was being held up high with outstretched arms, by some very muscular, tanned Spanish men, wearing medals around their neck (not sure if they were in recognition of their strength, but they deserved them to be!). Outside the church, the men continued to hold the plinth at arms length and sway in rhythm to the now familiar female Spanish wailing music. The article I was reading was about mindfulness, but I couldn’t even concentrate my mind on it enough to finish it – everything was far too exciting. Exploding rockets were being set off at irregular intervals from a roof somewhere, and a troop of dancers, ladies dressed in electric blue dresses with full skirts and white petticoats and men with trousers like matadors were swinging themselves and eachother around using castinets trailing multicoloured ribbons. The crowd were clapping and cheering, a cameraman was filming for the local cable t.v. and all the time the strong muscular men were swaying Madonna from side to side.
Eventually, the singing stopped and the band formed on the street playing the same strange tune as the Peunte parade. The Madonna men finally rested her plinth poles on their shoulders and set off on their march around the tiny, crowded streets of Nerja, followed by a crowd and saluted by frequent rocket explosions.
My friend, having missed the performance, returned laden with many bags accompanied by her terrified daughter, who has an intense fear of fireworks!!!!! That had to be about the worst place for her so we quickly sought refuge in a delightful Mexican bar where the live music drowned out the noise, and there was much to offer for the vegetarian palate.
Having a speedy change over day with my friends departure followed by the arrival of a group of 8 young Australians saw Alex and I going off to our first house party over here, totally exhausted. At the friend’s 60th there was lots of delicious food and drink, a backdrop of lake vinuela and mount maroma from their veranda and comparing of notes with lots of other ex-pats. Pictures were passed round of a fire which had taken hold on the other side of the hill across our valley where one couple lived. They showed how the Spanish fire fighting helicopter had hovered over their next door neighbours pool, scooped water into its dangling bucket then precariously tipped the chopper to cascade the water directly over the flames. The fire was contained within two hours – about how long it took them to empty the pool which had probably taken the owners 24 hours and many euros to fill!
Meanwhile, back at Casa Alejandro it was very satisfying to find our guests having a wonderful time playing water volley ball in the pool – and actually keeping score (girls were winning of course). In the water they had the most ingenious contrivance which they have promised to leave for me. It is an almost conical shaped inflatable with a fat, ring shaped base with several cup holders around it. The top of the cone shape lifts off and inside you can keep your cans of beer on ice!! Well if that’s not a floating bar, then nothing is!
This week we have been able to have a meeting with the developer of our little urbanization of 24 homes, to establish progress. It is the first time we have had our own interpreter and it was really enlightening to be able to understand and question everything fully.
On our excavated field so far there are 5 homes completed, three of them lived in, including ours, and two used for holidays. There are another 7 at various stages of completion and the rest of the development is a field in waiting! Our choice of the biggest plot available 3 years ago means that we are alone on the top far left corner of the field and have the soil foundation of a road leading across the field to our house. The developer informed us that due to the decline of the property market over here, he is not planning to build any more houses but is going to sell the plots of land to people who wish to build their own! Our road will not be completed until all the houses have been built as the construction traffic will cause damage to the road.
On first hearing this news we were understandably very disappointed as it will be many years before we are part of a flourishing urbanization complete with neighbours, post boxes, roads and street lights etc.
However, it does mean it will be many years before we have to pay urbanization taxes! It also means that we have our views to the side for much longer, until we get neighbours, and the wildlife can continue to provide us with entertainment and pleasure with much less disturbance than we were anticipating. As for the road, well many people over here would dream of a dirt track with as few craters as ours! The facts that we are the only ones using it at the moment and can now get our car onto our driveway makes it feel like our own luxury highway! The arrival of post boxes would remove the incentive for our wonderful weekly post office hike and the light pollution from street lights is bound to have a detrimental effect on our view of the stars. Therefore, all things considered, the news was almost good news for us in the end! It will obviously make a difference to our lettings plans but considering other places people are willing to get themselves to in this vicinity, it isn’t completely bleak, just a matter of reaching the right market.
Meanwhile, I can delight in observing the progress of the neighbouring flora and fauna through the seasons and continue with my vigorous aqua aerobics in our pool- completely unobserved by curious neighbours! There is, after all, a lot to be said for living in the corner of a field.
This week has seen the arrival of my son Rob and his girlfriend Sophie.Its like meeting folk from Rivendel going to meet them, as they are both so pale, tall and willowy, him with his long dreadlocks and her with her long silky dark hair – taking all the hassles of air travel in their strides, shrugging off any inconveniences, young ones’ style.
Whilst on our travels, to my delight, Rob found a tapas bar at Burriana beach which had a whole page of vegetarian tapas on the menu (eating in Spain is difficult for him, being a vegetarian who doesn’t like eggs!!).We decided to order all six options and share them, expecting that this was likely to be too much, but hey, it is their holiday.The bowls of olives were delicious, particularly the ones filled with jalapeño peppers and the raw strips of veges to dip in the spicy whiskey dip were delicious.However, these portions were rather small and the three little lettuce leaves filled with yoghurt and three manderine oranges were not really very tasty and the tiny dish of roasted potato cubes didn’t go very far, so we were really looking forward to our roasted vegetable skewers! Little did I think that such a dish could be prepared and delivered nouveau cuisine style! The first skewer came with four lonely pieces of vegetables at intervals on the stick – a bit of aubergine, a mushroom, some pepper and a third of a slice of one sleeve of an onion – the brown design on the plate by some drizzled sauce did look pretty, but pretty isn’t filling!!The vegetables on the cheesy skewer were just as lonely but at least had toasted cheese on them!Still being very hungry I ordered the champagne and lemon sorbet from the desert menu only to be presented with a lemon drink with a white blob floating in it.I have to say it tasted delicious but did nothing to reduce my remaining hunger.Straight from there to the icecream parlour was the only solution.Rob said he had enjoyed it all so that was good!
Friday night we walked to the local Italian where I knew Rob would be certain of getting something vege and we all had a lovely meal.At the other end of the block to the restaurant is a bar where a live band were expected so we all went there after our meal.Sure enough live music began so Al and I left the young ones there at about 2.30 after I had found myself doing a bit of head banging, urged on by a Scottish woman, and began walking home with our torch, both very merry and probably not shining it too evenly.As we were meandering along the track near the main road, admiring the perfect half moon which had just risen I suddenly became aware of a big spotlight heading towards us and a Guardia Civil (police) car stopped on the other side of the road.A deep Spanish voice shouted some enquiry we couldn’t understand and continued approaching us with his big flashlight so Alex, in his pigeon, drunken Spanish explained that we were English and we were going to our house whilst I shielded my eyes from the beam! It certainly made our torch with dimming batteries seem very dim and flickery. Anyway, this seemed to be what he needed to know as he uttered something which had reassuring tones, then returned to his car!Subsequent images in my mind of what we had looked like from his perspective kept me amused for the rest of our journey home.
Rob and Sophie had a good night mixing with local Spaniards communicating by gesture, odd Spanish words, a bit of French and drawings, returning home at 0700 to the delight of all the neighbourhood dogs who had been having such a boring night until then!
You are a Spanish native, you wake up one morning in February and whilst it is sunny and warm, you know it is early in the year and will become much hotter, so you don your black skirt and cardigan, tights and shoes. Off you go for a walk to the village when coming towards you is this short, dumpy, middle-aged woman wearing knee length denim shorts and a red vest top (“Georges” – but you wouldn’t know that), bouncing along the road with a big beaming smile as if she’s just won the lottery. As she approaches you she broadens her smile even further and says “hello, I am on heat” and then does that gesture only a hot or post coital woman can do!!! Worse still, she then does the same to your recently heart transplanted husband sitting on the wall!
Well, as you’ve probably guessed, that is my latest faux pas!!! I only found out in my last Spanish class that I haven’t been saying “I am hot” but “I am on heat”….ooops! It is to the credit of the Espanols that they didn’t fall about laughing to my face, but nodded in bemusement!This can be added to my previous miscommunications of telling the architect that I intend to live here in two arseholes (easy to mix up Spanish words for years and anus), that I loved him (rather than the house) and to the kitchen fitter “I am a bit” rather than I am small! One thing is for sure, my lack of ability to learn and remember the language has not had a dampening affect on my enthusiasm to try to communicate!! Better get back to my books/cds/computer/class!!
After a lovely morning cup of tea in bed, we got ourselves together to set off on our walk to the local weekly farmers market which is at a bar in Puente don Manuel down a little laney type of dirt track with reeds, orange and lemon trees, lethal looking electric cables on leaning poles and a seventies style dumped armchair. I always liked this walk until a hiking guide told us about the wild boars. Now the rustling in the reeds I believed to be birds, worries me to death in case a wild boar dashes out and gores us. I think Thorn Birds can also take some responsibility for this fear!
Anyway, we arrived to find the thronging converted car park, full of people and tables displaying wares of all kinds. Just to the entrance of the car park was a formidable four by four with “Guardia Civil” emblazoned on the side and an impressive set of coloured lights across the top, complete with a serious uniformed Spanish policeman, scribbling something down whilst sat at the steering wheel.
Now the first stall inside was laden with all types of fruit and veg, clearly having been recently harvested judging by their fresh appearance and the clods of earth clinging to some of the roots, manned by your archetypical Spanish senora complete with balancing scales and weights from my childhood era.
Sadly, this was the only stall which could possibly be construed as “farmers”! Venturing beyond was like venturing onto Peckham market! Cockneys (or at least southerners, I’ve never been able to distinguish between them!). were all up in arms having been visited by the Guardia. Upon closer eavesdropping, which wasn’t difficult – imagine walking past Del boy, hot and bothered, protesting innocence and complete indignation about the council coming round whilst he was trying to flog his stuff – it seems that the policeman was checking up on permits and passports!
As for the goods, well it could have been beamed across, Star Trek style, right out of Rodney’s suitcase and the yellow van. Costume jewelry Bet Lynch would have cringed at, some bric a brac, kitchen utensils etc., hoover bits and pieces, DVDs claiming not to be copies and looking less like originals that your average photocopied fiver! To be fair there were several arts and craft type stalls,as well as some bargain clothes etc. and under cover were the food stalls which did look tempting, home made pies, pasties, sausages and sauces but they were very pricey and not in keeping with my new philosophy of doing my own home cooking.
In the end, I proudly purchased tomatoes, aubergine, lettuce (2 for one euro), potatoes, mushrooms and onions, in Spanish and was understood!!!!
Now I feel ready to try the real market down in Torre del Mar or Velez Malaga, only there the vendors all compete by shouting about their bargains in very rapid Spanish, reminiscent of Cross Lane market when I was little, and just as scary! However, “when in Rome” as they say, that’s a challenge for next week! We can save Peckham market as our fall back!
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